Google glass door

by
HRM |
06 Nov 2013

Despite being voted the best company to work for by Fortune magazine for the fourth year in a row, Google employees, both past and present, have turned to online sharing site Quora to express their annoyances and grievances.

Drawbacks include the over-qualification of people for their specific job function due to the “very high hiring bar” and the fact that the brightest candidates have to be picked, “even for the most low-level roles”. This made it hard to get promoted quickly and the work is not always intellectually rewarding, resulting in some Google workers losing their drive.

Another employee who worked there for seven years said that Google employees thought of themselves as so outstanding, they joked about it: "I often say Google has a great problem: Too many outstanding people. For example, when I left, my direct reports were outstanding, my boss was outstanding, my peers were outstanding, my boss's boss was outstanding, and my boss' peers were outstanding."

Google is also renowned for offering perks for its workers, like free meals. For instance, in 2012, it subsidized 100,000 hours of massages for its employees. However, some employees criticized the culture, the Business Insider reports.

Former Google product designer Anne Halsall said that an abundance of play areas mean that staff at Google are not given much personal space. She writes: "if you have to work in one of the four main campus buildings, you will most likely be extremely cramped. It's quite common to see 3-4 employees in a single cube, or several managers sharing an office. With all the open areas for food, games, TV and tech talks, it can be surprisingly hard to find a quiet, private place to think."

Another bugbear was the fact that Google's executives are inept at managing their employees. An ex-employee said: “They don't want to rock the boat, they don't know how to inspire their workforce, and they rely far too much on the Google name and reputation to do that for them.”